A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Πλούταρχος), 1. The younger, was a son of the famous biographer of the same name, and is supposed by some to have been the author of several of the works which pass usually for his father's, as e. g. the Apophthegmata, and the treatises περὶ ποταμῶν and περὶ τῶν ἀρεσκόντων τοῖς φιλοσόφοις. His explanation of the fabled Sirens as seductive courtezans (Tzetz. Chil. 1.14, comp. ad Lycophr. 653) only shows that he belonged to that class of dull and tasteless critics, referred to by Niebuhr with just indignation, who thought that they were extracting historical truth from poetry by the very simple and ingenious process of turning it into prose. (See Voss. de Hist. Graec. pp. 251, 252, ed. Westermann; Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 232.)